


The Dragon Moves.

by RingThroughSpace



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Because why not., Gen, Pastiche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RingThroughSpace/pseuds/RingThroughSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This</i> is a world ruled by stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dragon Moves.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a pastiche I wrote up awhile back. Terry Pratchett's Wheel of Time would have been epic.
> 
> Obviously, neither of them are mine.

_Where to start? Where to end? In a world without beginnings or ends, there is only the middle. And the outside…._

There are trillions of planets in the Multiverse, all shaped differently, all governed by their own laws. There are worlds shaped like tortouces or snails, gas giants and rocks, worlds birthed from flame or spun from the womb of giant spiders. There are worlds governed by angry gods or pleasant ones, world wound like clockwork at the beginning of time. There are worlds ruled by arcane mathematical laws and, in one case, ruled by the tax codes of an invading species.

_This_ world is round, though its philosophers have -- at times -- disagreed. This does not make it unique.

But _this_ is a world ruled by stories.

All worlds have stories, of course, epics repeated by their inhabitants or enacted by feuding deities. But this one is different. On this world, its beings do not create stories. The stories themselves create its beings. The same scenes, the same epics, repeat with different names and different faces. Many of the beings know this, vaguely. Some accept it. Others are resigned to it or rage against the tales which entrap them.

What none are aware of is that the stories _themselves_ are governed by a stronger force. The stories repeat, yes, but they change each time, just a little. They mutate. They adapt. The better stories are selected for. The worse ones disappear. And, with time, they grow.

The stories, in other words, evolve.

And the problem with evolution, as any Creator will tell you, is that, eventually, things that evolve will become self-aware.

***

Consider the world from the perspective of a carbon atom. This particular one, for example. Her name is Alice.

They say -- on other worlds -- that snowflakes never feel responsible for their actions. Alice is not a snowflake. Alice is barely a fragment of a snowflake. But Alice is responsible for _everything._

In the eons of Alice's existence, she has shaped her world countless times. Alice has birthed princes and slain kings. Alice has inspired armies. Alice has destroyed cities and governed countries. Alice has built towers and dug mines and once -- proudly! -- led men to the Moon.

Right now, in the murky swamps of a nameless continent, Alice is burning a city.

Alice -- who had, but a few days ago, proudly saved a peasant's field from a herd of hungry cattle -- now waves proudly above the head of a helmeted man as he rides through a breech in the city walls. Smoke rises above Alice before Alice leaps into a pile of dry straw behind an inn. The straw ignites with a whoop.

And now Alice is free, part of the smoke that was once a city named Tanchico.

Alice rises above the city she has burnt, fanning the flames she has helped to create. And now Alice is high in the air.

Alice is blowing over a continent. Alice drives a wind that waters thirsty fields and floods rivers, hindering the futile efforts of the army that the mounted man was part of to move eastward. Alice blows at the backs of messengers on galloping horses, off to tell others of the invasion. And now Alice sinks slowly down as she approaches hills and rising mountains, until she is a gentle breeze that moves branches and sways the leaves of old elms and beech woods that are just now greening.

Alice approaches one leaf after another, gently pushing them forward, until she hits one leaf too hard. There is a gentle suck and Alice enters the leaf. A three-in-four chance later, and Alice is no longer part of the wind.

Alice is now growing a tree.


End file.
